This volume contains new translations to extend our image of one of the twentieth century''s most entertaining and thought provoking writers on culture, aesthetics and politics. Here are a cross-section of Brecht''s wide-ranging thoughts which offer us an extraordinary window onto the concerns of a modern world in four decades of economic and political disorder. The book is designed to give wider access to the experience of a dynamic intellect, radically engaged with social, political and cultural processes. Each section begins with a short essay by the editors introducing and summarising Brecht''s thought in the relevant year.